Aislin is a school guidance counsellor. She spends her spare time hitting the town with her friends. Susanna is a CEO of a fashion conglomerate and finds herself with very little time for relationships of any kind, including the time to build a good relationship with her daughter. They find themselves pushed together at a club when Susanna is entertaining some clients that just want to have fun.
Unbeknownst to Aislin, the friendship she’s struck up with a teenager in a coffee shop brings her back to Susanna in a professional capacity.
The development of the romance worked really well for me. It was always there, but both characters prioritised Cynt, Susanna’s daughter and her situation at first. This gave appropriate time for a bit of a slow burn. I also enjoyed the development of Aislin’s relationship with Cynt, there were some things I thought might be added to this to create drama later on in the storyline but I’m really glad to say that didn’t happen.
The bullying storyline was dealt with well. I think there were some elements I’d have preferred to have been closed off more fully as I felt neither Aislin or Susanna would have let it slide, but I can understand why Brooke chose to focus on the relationship rather than more explicitly discussing more of the reasons behind Cynt’s unhappiness.
As an ice queen character I really like Susanna. I found that she was in touch with how she came across to the world and I appreciated that. Both characters might have been a little bit slow at communicating with each other, but they did communicate and that was refreshing too.
I will definitely want to read about the characters that appear in this from the Coffee Sonata universe and explore Brooke’s romances further. I would recommend this to romance fans and those that are fond of ice queens.
I received an e-ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
LGBTQ+ Reader 